


take a chance and don't ever look back

by haloud



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining, Rough Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-04-12 00:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: Five times Michael and Alex don't dance, and one time they do.





	1. get your heart racing

**Author's Note:**

> YES the title is from teenage dream and im PROUD of it
> 
> this fic is not for redistribution without my express permission.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isobel says junior prom is stupid, but Michael hopes it will help him get closer to a certain someone...

Alex Manes is going to prom with Martin Ness.

The news spreads like a wildfire, the way only a rumor in a high school can. It hits the hallways first, where Alex cocks his hip and touches up his eyeliner in his locker mirror; it spreads through shouts and giggles in the cafeteria and the quad and the locker rooms and even trickles down to the  field where all the other Manes men had held court in their time.

Under the stairwell, squashed between a bank of lockers and a support beam, Michael bounces his knee and chews his thumbnail to the quick.

It was a stupid idea. It was always a—it’s not like they know each other, after all, not really, just kind of-sort of through Max by way of Liz and by way of this town isn’t big enough for everyone forced to spend most of their waking hours in proximity not to know each other. And they had biology together last year.

He made the old dubiously safe safety goggles look cute. How is that even possible?

But it’s not like they _know_ each other. What was he going to do, just walk up and _ask_ him and expect him to say _yes?_ He’s an alien, but he’s not completely out of touch with fuckin’ reality. Michael might be able to afford tickets to the dance, but a tux? Out of the question. Even rentals don’t come cheap. Isobel would be all to happy to help him figure something out, but then she’d want to know _why,_ and—

And that’s another thing. Alex is out, and Michael is—Michael doesn’t know what he is. He just knows that one day their fingers brushed on the pages of a textbook, and every single atom of his being sat up and took notice. Light flooded his soul, and his only thought was… _oh._ There you are.

He’s been trying to figure out what that moment meant and how to make it happen again ever since. He’d thought prom might be a good way…everyone goes, after all, everyone’s expected to have a date. For all that Isobel scoffs and says “only total wannabes go to _junior_ prom. I mean, come on,” she’s had her dress picked out for two months. So prom could have been a good way to jump in with both feet. A way to spend some time together. He’d just needed some time to work out the logistics, to plan, and to work up his courage because every time he thinks about dancing with Alex Manes he feels like bursting into flames.

Turns out he waited a little too long.

It’s okay, though. It’ll be okay. Michael tips his head back to rest against the cold white cinder brick. Lunch is almost over, but he hasn’t been hungry all morning anyway. And if he crawled out of his hiding place and ran into Alex, he might say something stupid or burst into tears and then he’d have to go and _die_ because Alex would never look at him again.

Michael isn’t Max, with his dorky charm and love of words and his brain-library full of swoon-worthy quotes. All Michael’s got is himself, and a lot of thoughts about the stars and how they move, and a truck old man Sanders says he can have if he can get it running again.

Alex makes _music._ Michael’s gotta find a way to be worthy of that.

Ness is in the orchestra too. That’s probably how they met.

Michael’s—Michael’s not going to think about that. Michael’s gonna get to pre-calc before the bell rings. Pity party over.

 

* * *

Isobel kidnaps her brothers to the dance. She’s got a date with a cute guy in her wood shop class, and she’s got to get ready, but she still wakes Max up with a tie and a ticket and meets Michael at the bus stop the same way. _No_ is never a good enough answer for Hurricane Isobel, so Michael spends an hour poking at his unruly curls and trying not to panic.

It’ll be okay. He’ll dance with his sister and anyone who’s there alone. It’ll make Isobel happy, it’ll get him out of the house for a night, and hey, it might even be fun. If he sees Alex and Ness together, he’ll. He’ll deal. He won’t let his disappointment get in the way of someone else’s good time. It’ll even be nice to see Alex having a good time. At school he’s always hard-edged and sharp and Michael likes it, he does, he likes the wit and the pride and the strength. But Alex has a really nice mouth, and it’s even nicer when he smiles.

Michael takes a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks and releasing it on a huge sigh. The suit Isobel got him doesn’t really fit right, but it’s not hideous. His hair is the same as always. One curl refuses to lie flat and bounces rebelliously right over his left eye. But it’s not like there’s anyone he’s trying to impress tonight.

The current fosters barely ever comment on Michael’s existence, and they don’t break pattern to notice he’s dressed up as he slips downstairs and out the door. Isobel’s car idles across the street, and Michael jogs over and climbs into the backseat.

“I thought it’d just be Max. What happened to wood shop guy?” He asks, clinging on to the front seats to steady himself as she hits the gas.

“Turns out wood shop guy pre-agreed that they’d both go to Kate Long’s afterparty,” Max replies, wiggling his eyebrows at Michael as if to say _the audacity of some people._

Isobel hunches her shoulders, and she does even that elegantly. Clenching her hands on the steering wheel, she snaps, “I told him weeks ago that I didn’t want to go to that bitch’s party. Everyone’s just going to get high, and her shithead brother will 100% be there. No _thank_ you. Boys are stupid. That’s why I have you two.”

Michael laughs at that, and he and his brother chorus, “We love you too, Iz.”

Clearly an attempt was made to transform the gymnasium, but it only achieved mixed results. The walls are hung with fabric and colored lights; the effect is a little dreamy, but it’s not enough to overcome the sound of dress shoes on a linoleum gym floor. Isobel disperses immediately into a cluster of girls on the dance floor; Max hovers a little longer before patting Michael on the shoulder and disappearing as well. Liz Ortecho isn’t here tonight, so he’s probably going to find a quiet corner to compose some poetry in or something.

While Max may be ridiculous, quiet doesn’t sound so bad. They’ve only been here fifteen minutes and already the pulsingly loud music is rattling his nerves. He’s not the biggest fan of loud noise or crowds, and this venue proudly boasts both. The corners of the gym are dark, so he risks using a bit of his ability to boost himself up on top of the folded bleachers where he can survey the rest of the room. He’ll dance a little later, maybe, after he’s acclimated.

He’s just gotten settled when he finally lays eyes on _him._

Michael can’t tell if Alex has just arrived or if he’s always been here, standing alone and looking beautiful and maybe looking for a dance partner too. Michael doesn’t know where Ness went, but he’s nowhere to be seen and that means Michael has a chance.

Okay. Okay. He missed one chance to be brave and make this happen. If he embarrasses himself, or, or Alex touches him and he doesn’t feel that frisson of rightness melting into every pore, no matter what happens, it’s not like they _know_ each other. Tomorrow, they can pretend like none of this ever happened—or maybe this can be a start of something? Giddy on a hundred possibilities, Michael forgets how he got up to his perch, and also that he’s a telekinetic alien, and scrambles down the side of the bleachers like it’s a ladder. He misses the bottom step and goes stumbling.

Popping up and righting himself with a blush on his face, Michael shoulders his way through the crowd to where Alex was standing just a minute ago. No one’s there now; Michael spins on his heel to see if he can see Alex walking away. He spots spiky dark hair silhouetted against shifting green light and follows it, not caring how many feet he steps on as he goes. He loses sight of Alex again just past the refreshment table and, frustrated, he elbows his way off the dance floor.

_There_ he is. Heart in his throat, Michael sees where Alex ended up. He’s seated, lounging on the dais at the foot of the DJ booth, eyes closed and head tipped back so Michael can see every inch of his graceful neck, dyed purple, then golden as the lights shift all around them.

Michael can’t do it. He can’t. Alex looks too peaceful, too perfect, over there surrounded by the music where he’s most at home and where Michael will have to shout to be heard as he stumbles over the words that will make Alex _notice_ him.

Michael scrambles for the doors and for fresh air to calm his racing pulse.

Next year. He’ll be braver next year.

* * *

 

Later that night, Alex lays in bed with his arms behind his head and sighs, loud and dramatic and just a little bit laughing at himself. The dance was _fine,_ but…is he too naïve for having hoped that some handsome guy would swoop in and sweep him off his feet? He didn’t even get one dance with Martin, who snuck off immediately to kiss his secret boyfriend behind the building. They’d only gone together to prove they _could,_ as the only two guys out in their year, but still. Rude.

Funny thing is, Alex would swear he saw Michael Guerin a few times, watching him with this _adorably_ nervous look on his face, his hair tumbling sweetly around his face. Alex wonders what that was all about and…maybe he should have gone up and asked. Maybe he missed out, just a little bit.

Guerin did look _really_ cute, after all. And despite what everyone else seems to think, Alex knows that he can be weirdly shy, considering how much he went blushing and tongue tied when they were lab partners.

Alex rolls over onto his side, a slow grin spreading over his face.

Who cares about junior prom? Hey, maybe he’ll get his chance next year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i maaaay turn this into a longer thing, like a 5+1 thing. Five times michael didn't get to dance with alex and one time he did (it's their wedding). But for now, enjoy pining bb michael
> 
> I dont even know if Roswell High would have a junior prom, but I couldn't resist writing about Michael having a big ol crush on Alex
> 
> tumblr @ cosmicsolipsism  
> discord @ haloud


	2. soft beneath my heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prom has always been Michael’s endgame. A big gesture. Something deserving of Alex Manes and his smile and the nose piercing he got over the summer. Max keeps talking about how he and Liz are running out of time, but Michael doesn’t see why things have to end the second he hits the highway. People say long distance relationships never work out, but people also seem to think they’re alone in the universe. Clearly, people need to start using their imaginations.

Senior year is everything and nothing like it was supposed to be. Maybe if Michael had more chance to watch television as a kid, he would have had a clearer expectation of what was to come; or maybe he just would have had a false hope to rail against.

Whatever the case, in real life he flew blind.

But it’s almost over now. He photocopies his scholarship letter from UNM and sticks it to the roof of his truck so he can look at it when it rains and the stars aren’t out. Final exams are a few weeks out, but for the first time in his life they don’t feel like the end of his world knocking down the door. He did it. He’s in. Everything else is just the credits rolling.

Only one more hurdle to jump.

Michael and Alex still don’t really know each other. Their circles brush a little more these days than they used to—Michael goes where his siblings go, Isobel goes where Max goes, so all three of them go to the Crashdown every day ending in Y. It’s not such a big deal, though, not yet. Prom has always been Michael’s endgame. A big gesture. Something deserving of Alex Manes and his smile and the _nose piercing_ he got over the summer. Max keeps talking about how he and Liz are running out of time, but Michael doesn’t see why things have to end the second he hits the highway. People say long distance relationships never work out, but people also seem to think they’re alone in the universe. Clearly, people need to start using their imaginations.

Now, Michael never skips class, and he’s never really had to put up with bullies despite the rumors he’s homeless because everyone’s too scared of Isobel. But it’s a matter of course that he’d have a handful of hiding places across campus. Last time he grew he ended up too tall to fit in his old spot under the east stairs, but the new spot is even better: a little-used janitor’s closet sandwiched between two auditorium access doors. Spring is his new favorite season, because sometimes when he posts up in there during lunch or after class, he can hear the orchestra practicing for their upcoming concert.

It’s there where he gets the idea to kick off his master plan with a little bit of petty theft. Not the _best_ idea, but Alex hasn’t gotten any easier to talk to, not when Michael’s heart still starts to tap dance whenever they’re in the same room. At least this gets his attention.

Smoothing his hands over Alex’s guitar feels all at once both sacred and utterly profane. He feels it under his palms for hours after giving it back.

And then…Michael always knew Alex was kind, but he doesn’t even have words for what it is that Alex offers him in a steady voice. Nothing to say but _thank you,_ each word like the sound of a gonging bell between them. He doesn’t even get to ask what he was going to ask, too overwhelmed and grateful and awed and small inside.

On prom night, it seems like the whole school’s gone stag this year. There’s Liz and Valenti, of course, but everyone else Michael knows is only coming to party. Even Isobel doesn’t even play at wanting a trophy on her arm this year. When Michael asks her who she’s taking, she goes wan and tense the way she spends too much time going these days and snaps that of course she’s taking _him,_ why, does he not want her to? Some college girl from Albuquerque already making the drive for him?

It stings a little—or, okay, a lot, but Michael gets it better than anyone else possibly could. Sometimes it feels like he knows people best by the way their backs look shrinking in the distance. He doesn’t want that for Is; she deserves to know that she’s always gonna be his best girl. So he spends half the night showing her a good time, making her laugh on the dance floor, keeping her company even when Max drifts away to follow Liz at a distance. It’s a bit of a dent on his plans, but nothing’s more important to him than Is knowing she’s gonna be loved.

The party’s in full swing when she turns to him, eyes sparkling, cheeks pinker than her dress, and says, “Isn’t there anyone else you’d rather dance with? Not that I’m not flattered, of course!”

Michael turns pink too. He feels like he’s been hearing Alex’s name whispered all night, but he can’t be sure because that’s just kind of normal for him. Isobel smiles—not her teasing grin, but a resigned twist of her lips.

“Go,” she says, punching his shoulder lightly.

“Are you sure? I don’t have to—”

“ _Go,_ Michael. You’ve done enough. I mean it.” Isobel leans in and kisses him on the cheek. As if to prove her point, she then turns sharply on her heel and stalks like a lioness to some random guy on the dance floor. Michael laughs, shaking his head. Oh, Isobel.

Oh, _Alex._

It’s now or never. Michael has to find him in the crush of bodies somehow, has to seize the moment before it’s gone for good. He’s sweating a little too much, though, he’s a little too disheveled, a little too emotional. He just needs to catch his breath, maybe splash some water on his face. Slipping out the side door—really, it shouldn’t be this easy, aren’t these things chaperoned?—Michael sucks in a breath that chills his lungs, the building’s AC cranked up high to compensate for all the grinding, grasping bodies packed into one room. He heads straight for the bathroom, his secondhand dress shoes bouncing eerily off the walls of the deserted school. He rounds the corner, only to slam straight into the sharp shoulder of someone waiting on the other side. It clips him right in the center of his chest and he sprawls back, arms windmilling, until his back hits the lockers with a bang.

“ _Guerin?”_ The person almost-shouts. Michael jerks his arms up to cover his face before the voice registers to his brain.

“Oh god, oh god, Guerin, I’m so sorry, I thought you were someone else—” Alex babbles, and Michael jerks his arms down as quickly as they came up. Alex grabs his shoulders and pulls him forward, presses at a few places on his back to feel for bruising. Michael feels himself ragdoll with a combination of adrenaline leaving his body and the sheer sweet relief of Alex _touching_ him with care, but he manages to coordinate his mouth muscles enough to speak.

“It’s okay, Manes, it’s okay. I’m fine.” He straightens up, holding his arms out to demonstrate. Alex relents slightly; the last thing he does is tug the lapels of Michael’s jacket so it settles neat back over his shoulders.

(He really hopes Alex doesn’t look down.)

The silence rattles around the cavernous hallway. Nothing but linoleum and concrete and emptiness in every direction, but Michael and Alex stand occupying the same foot of space, breathing in each other’s air.

Clearing his throat, Michael says, “Uh, I was just—got a little hot in there. What are you doing out here?”

Alex’s eyes dart off to the side, and he chews on his lower lip. Michael is about to say he doesn’t have to answer if he doesn’t want to when the door Michael came through bursts open and spills out four or five loud voices. The color drains from Alex’s face, and Michael doesn’t think, just says:

“I know a place. Come on.”

The two of them take off, cutting through all the shortcuts Michael knows until they reach the narrow auditorium accessway. Even this late at night, the door to the janitor’s closet remains blessedly unlocked.

One thing he didn’t plan for though: it’s a little cramped for two people. Michael’s “don’t look down” problem is going to become a different problem entirely if Alex gets too fidgety. Luckily, it’s at least too dark for Alex to see how he’s lighting up pink.

Potential for embarrassment aside, Michael doesn’t like the angry hunch of Alex’s shoulders, the ducked head, the clenched jaw. He wants to reach out and, and hug him, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed. Doesn’t know if comforting him like that would be okay.  So he stumbles out, “Hey, a-are you okay? I know it’s probably a stupid question since it’s prom and we’re standing in a janitor’s closet, but—"

“I’m just pissed. It’s Valenti. He keeps popping up, and he hasn’t said anything yet, but I know he’s going to. And everywhere I look there’s a football player staring back. I shouldn’t let Valenti get to me. I kept telling myself this year would be different after last year was so boring and crappy but I’ve spent all night avoiding his stupid cronies instead of having any fun. And _then_ I almost decapitated a perfectly innocent guitar-stealing weirdo.” At that last sentence, his eyes flick to Michael’s and he makes an attempt at a smile, at lessening the tension.

Michael’s shoulders drop in relief, and heart skipping a beat at Alex’s mention of _last year,_ he licks his lips. Last year wasn’t boring for Michael. He’s kind of been measuring time in terms of _before_ last year and _after_ he started waking up with Alex’s name on his lips.

“Night’s not over yet. Pretty much everyone’s still out there. But hey, as Roswell’s resident guitar-stealing weirdo, I totally get it if that’s more your idea of a good time.”

Alex laughs an _actual_ laugh, and Michael has to glance down to make sure he’s just being a sappy dork and hasn’t _actually_ floated off the floor. Then Alex gets serious again and shakes his head.

“Going out and dancing by myself would just encourage them. ‘Get a load of Manes, he’s a loser and a—”

“Who says you’d be alone?” Michael’s voice comes out embarrassingly high-pitched, and he jams a knuckle against his lips. Alex glances at him, one eyebrow cocked, sharp dark eyes flicking left to right like Michael is a puzzle he’s been trying to solve for days.

Maybe even longer.

Outside their little sanctuary and a hallway over, a locker door crashes and the voices from before whoop loudly. The two boys flinch together, and without thinking Michael grabs Alex’s elbow and tugs him slightly behind him, putting himself between Alex and the door. They stay like that for a long moment, as the bangs and shouts move away and go silent. Michael’s head is tilted so he can still look Alex in the eye. Alex’s pupils are dilated in the dim light, but the effect is the same as if—Michael feels a little devoured, just then, a little eaten up. He’s never felt like this before. He wants to bury himself in Alex’s chest and trust Alex to hold him tight. Those long, dark eyelashes flutter every time Alex blinks, and Michael wants to feel them against his cheeks.

Alone again, the outside world feels so far away. Michael turns fully and rocks up onto his toes to bring their mouths closer together, just because he can. “Whaddya say, Manes?” he asks, jerking his thumb in the direction of the faint, faint music.

Alex draws himself up so tall and close it makes Michael’s heart beat faster. His heart falls again, though, when Alex shakes his head.

Then Alex says, “Nah. Not here. If you really want to, you can take me out some other time, where we don’t have to put up with those assholes. Deal?”

He skims his fingertips over the back of Michael’s hand. It restarts Michael’s heart in double-time, makes goosebumps erupt all down that arm. His curls bounce up and down as he nods his head. It’s scary—god, how is he going to come up with something for them to _do_?—but also Michael can’t stop smiling.

“Maybe I kind of wanted to dance with you, though,” he says.

Alex chuffs a little laugh. “Then maybe I’ll just have to go to dances more often.”

“We-eelllll…” Michael can’t help the spread of his grin, even though all the smiling makes his cheeks hurt. “When you do, maybe you’ll save a spot on your schedule for me?” He knocks his scuffed-up shoe against Alex’s. He’s so warm in this little space they’ve made together. He always picks his hiding places because they feel safe, but he had no idea he could feel like _this._

“Yeah.” Alex swallows twice, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I will. I’ll save a spot for you right at the end.”

“The end? That gonna give us enough time?”

“Last song’s as long as you want it to be. Sometimes it even keeps going once you get home.”

Just like that, Michael’s uncomfortable problem is back. His heels hit the floor again flat, and he splutters all undignified as the closet lights up white with Alex’s feral grin.

“I think they’re gone. Shall we?” Alex says while Michael tries to collect himself.

“U-uh, yeah. After you.”

They climb out of the closet into the now-deserted hallway. Alex reaches out and steadies Michael when he stumbles over the lip of the doorframe, but the weight and sensation of his hands just makes Michael feel like Jell-O. At the intersection of the hallway—one side leading back to the dance, one side leading outdoors—Alex stops, grabbing Michael’s wrist to jerk him to a halt too.

“Alex?”

He doesn’t get a response, just intense, calculating eyes boring into him, staring him down. It’s been Michael’s greatest lifelong fear, being dissected, but he lets it happen now. Alex’s eyes pin him down spread-eagle on a steel table, but standing so close to him, leashed by that hand around his wrist, he only feels drifting and docile like a beehive smoked out. He wants to ask what’s wrong but can’t make his brain connect to his mouth to make words.

Slowly, oh-so slowly, Alex reaches out and, with just two fingers, smooths that loose curl back behind Michael’s ear. Michael’s mouth pops open on a breathy little sound as Alex follows that path again, stoking his forehead, combing through his hair. Then Alex nods, just once, like he’s come to some decision. Michael doesn’t know what it might be, but it’s okay, he’s cool with Alex calling the shots from now on as long as they can stay close like this.

“I’m going to the bathroom to freshen up a bit,” Alex says. “Meet me outside by the trellis? We can get food or something before everywhere closes.”

“Y-yeah, sounds good. I’m here with Isobel, but I’ll—I’ll let her or Max know.”

Alex gives him a little smile before he walks away. Michael sways in his direction just a little bit before he collects himself and goes the other way.

Standing under the latticework and the fairy lights, Michael closes his eyes and lets the night feel magical. He lets the whole, vast night wrap around him like the scent of Alex’s cologne pressed up against him in a tiny janitor’s closet. His mind whirls and crashes but for once the noise just sounds like _singing._

What if Alex kisses him? Michael’s lower lip tingles, and he bites at it to make it stop. He’s not some blushing virgin; just because Alex is tall and his dark eyeliner makes his eyes look even darker, doesn’t mean Michael should be acting like a princess.

Alex has never had a boyfriend, at least not that Michael knows about. Maybe Alex is a virgin. Maybe Michael could be his first—

The thought makes Michael’s heart skip a beat, and he almost slaps himself before remembering that he is, technically, in public. _You’re getting way ahead of yourself,_ he thinks. Who says Alex wants to be anything more than friends? Maybe Alex doesn’t even want him just because he’s offering. Besides, Michael’s never been with a guy either, so maybe he’d be crap at it…

Great, now he’s just depressed.

“Dude, are you okay? You just went on one hell of a face journey.”

Michael startles bad for the second time tonight, but this time when he whirls around it’s just Max.

“Dude, you know not to sneak up on me.” He smacks Max lightly on the shoulder, and Max rolls with it, nodding.

“You’re right, I know. Seriously, though, you okay? Where have you been all night?”

“Spent most of it with Is, why?”

“Well, she was alone a little while ago when she drove off.”

“She left?”

“Yeah. Said she wasn’t feeling it or something.”

“She was fine when I left her. Hell, she was the one who told me to go.”

They face each other under the fairy lights. Max won’t stop staring. Michael’s skin feels too small for his body.

Finally, Max says, “I’m sure she’s fine. There are a hundred Isobel reasons why she’d want to leave early.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right,” Michael replies, weak with relief. “How’re you going to get home? I’ve,” he runs his hand through the curls at the back of his neck, “made plans, but, uh, what about you?”

“I’ll figure something out.” Max’s voice trails off, his attention already wandering. “I don’t want to leave until Liz does, in case…”

Michael lets out a little bubble of laughter. Shine on you crazy diamond.

“Why don’t you go find her? I’m sure Valenti will stop pissing on her leg long enough for you to get in one dance. Also I’m meeting someone here, so like, would kind of love to not have my dork-ass brother hanging around.”

Max scoffs and shoves at Michael’s head. “Shut up. I’m the cool brother and you know that.”

“Uh huh, says who? Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky?”

“Sholokhov, plebian.”

“Ugh, you disgust me.”

Max laughs again. Then he glances up at the building, brow furrowed. Michael follows his line of sight, heart leaping when he sees Alex hurrying down the stairs, then plummeting into his stomach as Valenti and the rest of the starting line spill out in pursuit.

* * *

The night ends sudden after that. The football players disperse, and Max does too, either home or wherever Liz Ortecho went, Michael doesn’t really care. There’s a cold little grain of disappointment in his chest, but the skin of his shoulder still burns where Alex squeezed him as he left.

Michael trails his path out to the parking lot, in no particular hurry, now, for the night to end. Alex is long gone. Michael hopes Liz managed to give him some comfort before he drove away, left angry to a house that hates him, and—

He decides then and there that he’s going to the toolshed that night. He hadn’t been sure if he would before, not sure how taking Alex’s charity would affect things between them. But all he care about now is being there, being close enough that maybe it brings Alex a little peace, as if he can feel him, even if he doesn’t know he’s there.

Something rustles under his foot as he steps off the sidewalk, and he moves his foot aside to reveal a champagne-colored rose, delicate and tightly-furled. The same one that had been threaded through Alex’s buttonhole when they stood so close their chests nearly brushed.

Michael cups it in his hands like it might fly away. That night, he fills one of his cupholders full of water and floats it there for want of a vase.

And there it stays.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5+1 is a go! The next two chapters aren't going to be nearly as fluffy as the first two, fair warning.


	3. these moving parts inside of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He gets a cheap burger and puts his feet up on the dash, and after the sun goes down he pulls into the parking lot of the kind of bar they don’t have in Roswell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the new tags and that the rating has gone up.

Ten miles west of Lubbock, Michael takes the exit and turns around. His good hand white-knuckles the wheel; his bad hand burns on the sun-baked sill of the window. He merges on the eastbound and wonders what the fuck he’s doing. It’ll still be light out when he makes it back to the city. What he’s doing is dumb enough without the extra time for feeling foolish while he waits around for the bars to open.

Thing is, Michael wants to feel again.

Through death and loss and loneliness, his whole world’s just been…white noise. An overstressed processor whine. Nothing fixes it; nothing makes it stop. He’s tried booze, he’s tried acetone, he’s tried turning his trailer into a tourist trap for bored housewives.

None of it worked. Not one bit. So god, maybe it _is_ men. It’s not that Michael’s never _looked_ at a man since Alex, it’s just that when rough hands grab him by the waist, when stubble rasps against his skin, looking at the guy feels like curdled milk and closing his eyes is the kind of temptation that can stop a man’s heart. He’s never gone far enough with any man to start crying out Alex’s name.

Maybe that’s gonna change tonight. If Alex Manes wanted an army wife, he should’ve got down on one knee. It’s been four years. He’s done saving himself for his brave soldier boy, ‘specially when it’s not like Alex ever even asked him to.

(He’d have said yes, in a heartbeat, and then where would they be?)

The ranch doesn’t send him out this far very often, so if Michael doesn’t take this opportunity then it could be months before he gets another. Even so, he almost doesn’t go. What if this is the answer, and Michael just needs to fuck men for a while? Almost better not to know, for all the good it’ll do him. Lord knows you can’t get cock in Roswell without it becoming a federal fucking issue.

But god he wants to feel again.

So he gets a cheap burger and puts his feet up on the dash, and after the sun goes down he pulls into the parking lot of the kind of bar they don’t have in Roswell. Inside, haze clings to every surface, wraps and flows to let the patrons pass. The rumble of voices blends with the bassy music into something that tastes a little like drinking whiskey and a lot like kissing after. A crowd mills around the bar, calling out for drinks, leaning on each other; a larger crowd mills around the floor, dancing, grinding, talking real close. Men and men. Women and women. It’s like every bar he’s ever been to. It’s like the snap of a bungee rope that pulls him out of freefall back to safety. Michael takes a deep, steadying breath, flexes his ruined hand, and struts inside like he belongs.

He doesn’t even make it all the way to the bar before a man in a white hat is tipping the brim at him and drawling, “Buy you a drink?”

Michael drags his gaze from the man’s feet up to his face. Tall and broad, with a wide chest and thick shoulders, this is a man who could lift Michael one-handed, hold him down, toss him around. Michael licks his lips and feels…

Nothing.

Well, not _nothing._ His hindbrain perks up the same way it does when he winks a woman over the hood of her car and she slides a little closer. So at least that’s one thing answered. This is for him. This _is_ him. He could give this man a smile and a little of his time; he could slide into this man’s truck and go on his back and get a taste of forgetting old-fashioned style.

He just doesn’t really want to, and goddamnit that’s the _problem._

Still, there’s something new and delicious about being looked at by a man in a crowded room, so Michael won’t brush him off. He tilts his chin towards the bar and says, “Thanks for the invite, but I’ve got this round. Maybe I’ll see you around some other time?”

The big guy shrugs good-naturedly and ambles back to a table, where his buddies laugh and tease him for striking out. A pang of envy flashes through Michael and he breathes it out like all other useless regrets.

Drinking. Drinking is a good idea. This is an unfamiliar environment; a stressor. If he loosens up and finds his rhythm, maybe he’ll get more into it. He shoulders past a gaggle of bystanders to plant his elbows on the bartop and orders a beer at random.

As she pops the cap, the bartender, a grizzled-looking woman with thick, graying hair in a messy bun and laugh lines around her eyes, glances at him sideways and asks, “First time?”

Michael blinks, reflexively clenches his hands. He flicks through reactions in his mind—defensive, suave, running out the door and never looking back…finally he clears his throat and manages, “Small town. This’s my last night out here, so I figured…”

The bartender nods and just says wrenchingly simple:

“Welcome.”

And moves on to another customer.

Michael needs to sit down.

He collapses into a newly-vacated stool and wraps both palms around the cold glass of the bottle. This place is crowded and loud in a way the Wild Pony never is. It pulses; it’s alive. Michael’s eyes flutter shut; he searches for his heartbeat inside the rhythm.

He’s jostled out of his thoughts by a bony elbow catching him in the shoulder as some kid—well, probably close to Michael’s age, but he _looks_ young, looks fresh, in a way Michael doesn’t know he’s ever looked—reaches past him to grab a pair of cocktails. Drinks in hand, he floats over to the nearest table, where a single dark-haired man nurses a single drink and sits with his back to the bar.

“Hey, soldier, wanna have some fun?” The kid asks, draping himself over the table’s other chair.

“Sorry,” a wry voice shouts over the pounding bass, “You’re cute, but curly hair doesn’t really do it for me.”

Michael snorts against the lip of his beer. Nerve of some people. Still, there’s something to that voice, a little hint of swagger that makes Michael sit up and take notice, makes him think _maybe,_ makes him think _finally,_ makes him think _wanna go for a ride?_ The bold little twink that just got snubbed sticks his nose up in the air and stalks away through the haze. It doesn’t take him long to find someone else who’ll take the spare drink off his hands and lead him grinning to the dance floor. Michael gestures at the bartender for another beer, and once it’s slid his way he rolls his shoulders to loosen up, rolls his neck to hear it pop, and rolls his hips off the bar to make people look his way. The guy at the table, of course, doesn’t get the benefit of Michael’s performance, but it’s still an unexpected rush to be _seen,_ now that he’s got a challenge to meet.

 _Soldier,_ the kid had said, and this guy may be out of uniform, but Michael can see it. His firm posture; his close-cropped hair. The measured way he curls his hand around his glass, takes a sip, and puts it back in the exact same place. A ready smirk teases Michael’s lips as he makes his way over.

“Soldier, huh?” He says aloud, putting the beer on the table with a _thunk._ “That a line you get often or the real thing? You gonna show me some discipline?” A flush revs the engine in his veins. He doesn’t know if he’s gunning for a fight or for a fuck, but he’ll take either one so long as this feeling doesn’t slip through his fingers.

Until the screech of chair legs on the wood floor drowns out all other sound. Everything but the ringing in his ears.

Because Alex Manes is looking back at him.

Shattering glass would hurt people. Chairs flying in every direction too. React too strongly and you’ll bust something important, maybe start a fire. Hold it together. This building has three exits and a fire door as well as a storage room with a lock behind the bar and probably cellar access.  You have a clear line of sight to the bathrooms if you need a place to hide or panic. You are not trapped. No one here wants to hurt you. Your truck has enough gas to make it back to Roswell without stopping. There is no need to panic.

Count back from ten. A safe release: let the cars outside rock a little on their suspensions. Nine. Stretch the fingers on your left hand. Eight. Breathe in. Seven. Alex looks scared. Six. Do something about it. Five. Breathe out. Four. Put down your other beer so you have both hands free. Three. Say something. Two. No, not yet. One.

_Alex._

He’s walking away.

He’d be running if he wasn’t controlling himself so tightly. Instead he takes it at a march, stiff-jointed and robotic. Michael scrambles after him, half-dreaming, ears ringing out a plaintive whine that he stuffs behind his teeth. He chases Alex in slow motion through the crowd and the swirling air, towards the secluded back of the bar and the back door hidden in a little alcove.

“Alex!” He cries, and the man jerks like Michael threw a fist instead. Unable to stop himself, Michael grabs his shoulder with his broken hand, and wheels him around so he can drink in the sight of that face.

It’s him. Undeniably, irrefutably. Michael didn’t recognize his voice over the noise, over the sound of him grown into its depth and timbre. But it’s _him,_ and Michael reaches out his hands like maybe, maybe, he won’t be turned away.

“Guerin,” Alex groans, and Michael bobs his head pathetically, like _yes,_ like _please,_ like _help me,_ like _hello._

They collide.

Face pale and set like he’s hunting a ghost, Alex cups Michael’s face and turns them so Michael’s the one with his back to the wall. He marches them forward, and Michael lopes back in step. The rest of the world fades out to a dull throb, an unimportant ache. Michael snatches at Alex’s clothes to drag him in. They’re not moving _fast_ enough. Michael used to think they had time, but now he knows it was never true, and his has never been the hand on the hourglass.

“ _Aaanh!_ ”

The sound rips itself out of Michael’s chest as he throws himself against the wall, twisting his hand in the bottom of Alex’s clinging red shirt. Their mouths slam together, all momentum. Michael opens his mouth to take Alex’s tongue with a loud moan. Alex hisses in response; his forearms thud against the wall on either side of Michael’s head a millisecond later, bracing himself instead of _crushing_ Michael the way Michael wishes he would. He wants the bruises, wants the bloody lip, wants a clawing, scratching sting he can rub against in the morning.

If he can’t have a dance, he can have this much.

Goading, he shoves his hands under Alex’s clothes and drags his dull nails in the spaces between Alex’s ribs. He’s heavy with muscle now, but he’s still soft to touch like the boy Michael loved in a pale blue suit. Alex tears his mouth away to pant against Michael’s jaw. His fists clench and Michael’s hips twitch at the creak of bone and tendon and power at the edge of his hearing.

“Touch me,” he says, “Alex, touch me,” because what does he have to lose, “Alex, it’s me, it’s you, touch me.”

“I can’t,” Alex gasps, breathy and cracked and tasting like salt, “Oh no, oh God, it’s _you,_ oh—”

“You can. You _can.”_ Michael cups the back of his neck so they can kiss again, sloppy and hot. Alex smells like leather, like metal, like secondhand smoke. Michael’s spent three days in his truck, so he knows what he smells like too—rose petals and gasoline and wax. That’s what Alex is breathing in with every drag of his lungs. _Him._

“What are you _doing_ here,” Alex pleads, “Why are you _here,_ I can’t, I can’t—”

“What are _you_ doing here?”

And Alex laughs, rude and wet, a sound from the bottom of his stomach. “Why are we doing this, Guerin? Why’d you even walk my way? Nothing’s changed!”

“Nothing’s changed,” Michael agrees, pressing their foreheads together. He wants to beg Alex to let it be true. But he doesn’t. Used to be there was no need for dignity, here, but maybe _some_ things have changed after all. Michael kisses Alex above each unlined eye, on the bridge of his nose, holds him close to brush his lips on either ear. Still and tense like he’s bracing against a storm, Alex makes little choking noises at every touch of his mouth, and a low cry escapes when Michael pulls back to press kisses to his fingertips.

Nothing’s changed. Alex can shove and cut and hide away whatever he needs to keep himself safe, but Michael can still read the ink beneath his skin. _This_ is it, the answer, the solace he’s been seeking. It didn’t die, Michael didn’t kill it and burn it to ash while the silent stars looked on. Alex just took it with him when he left.

It’s okay to be without it, now, if Alex needs it more.

“Nothing’s changed,” Michael says in a raspy whisper, as he rearranges and recategorizes and everything does.

Instead of replying, Alex bares his teeth and fastens them to the meat of Michael’s shoulder, exposed by the stretched-out collar of his shirt, sending a slick shiver from his scalp to his toes. It’s nothing at all like understanding, but it fills a need enough right now. All his animal instincts roll his head to the side to expose the softest parts of him.

“Guerin,” Alex half-whispers, half-sobs. Michael runs his fingers across Alex’s scalp. He nods. He knows.

Being with Alex has always been music enough to dance to, but tucked away in this corner away from the world, they don’t. They don’t shuffle. They don’t sway.

The world moves on in beat and time, and they don’t move at all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saying that Michael smells like "rose petals, gasoline, and wax" from being in his truck is poetic, sure, but it's not just that--he tried to preserve the champagne rose from the last chapter when it started to die, but he didn't do a very good job and got wax all over the seats. When the sun gets hot enough, the smell still comes out. As for the other two, gasoline is just a constant, and while the original, completely dry rose is now in a box in his trailer, he's gotten in the habit of keeping a few fresh cuttings around. it makes him feel closer to alex, and to the child he used to be.
> 
> just a little bonus content for y'all ;)


	4. sad sweet and unfinished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boredom’s gotten Michael into trouble more and more over the past eight years but agreeing to help plan Isobel’s wedding just might take the proverbial cake.

Life in Roswell seemed impossibly small when he was a kid with a ticket out, but even then he had no idea how _boring_ it could be. Work on the ranch keeps his hands busy and soothes his soul; the Fosters have been good to him in a life where Michael can’t say that often. Still, though, his brain paces his skull like a circus tiger, coiled and starving. People don’t talk to you when you start sixth grade in clothes three sizes too big; people don’t talk to you when you’re twenty-five and day drunk on household chemicals.

Boredom’s gotten Michael into trouble more and more over the past eight years but agreeing to help plan Isobel’s wedding just might take the (proverbial) cake.

Four hours into Isobel’s book of fabric samples, he’s slumped in the corner of his bunk and wracked with a new respect for his sister’s choice of career. He groans, “Why do you even need an assistant? You’ve planned a million weddings. And this time you won’t even have to argue with people who are too dumb to know that you know everything.”

Isobel stops pacing and wheels to face him with her hands on her hips, a pale satin tie clenched in each fist. “Because a _good_ wedding is the result of the competition between two forces: an idiot with a vision and me, who knows how to make it happen. If fewer than five screaming fights take place, I consider a project a total failure.”

“Iz, I’m not gonna fight you; you know I’ll just agree because I want this to be special for you.”

“Well, if you really want this to be the wedding of my dreams—” She fights back a smile, “—you can start by having an opinion between ash blue and periwinkle. Really let me have it.”

“Periwinkle is for dumb sluts.”

“That’s the spirit,” she says, tossing the ash blue tie into the reject corner with all the rest. “Excellent. With that done, we’re all set for you guys’ fittings next week. Is Friday okay for you? Max has a thing on Saturday.”

“Iz…”

“You’re sitting in the front row, so you don’t get to say no. And before you say anything at all,” Isobel sticks her palm in Michael’s face, “I’m paying for Max’s suit too. As if I’m going to let my own brothers make their own wardrobe choices on my wedding day. How stupid do you think I am?”

“Front row, huh?” An unexpected lump in his throat blocks the words, leaving them watery and weak. He scrubs at the back of his head as Isobel gives him an exasperated look.

“Of course. None of Noah’s family will be there, so we’re not having traditional attendants or anything, but that doesn’t mean you’re not still my maid of honor.” She reaches out and cups his cheek. Her eyes glisten bright, too.

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere.”

“Doesn’t need to; you’re already here. Dumbass.”

Michael gasps dramatically as she claps him on the cheek. Then Isobel goes back into action mode, taking a step back, straightening her shoulders, and tossing her hair back like they hadn’t just been thirty seconds from weeping openly in each other’s arms.

“Alright,” she says, “I’m off to put the fear of god into a pastry chef. I’ll be back tomorrow, though—next, you get to help me put the playlist together.”

She tears out of the lot, the same terror behind the wheel she was at eighteen. He watches her go, unease prickling in his guts.

He…doesn’t want to put together a wedding playlist.

He hasn’t had much to do with music in a long time. Mostly, it just hurts. It hurts to not even be able to mock the fingerings against his thigh. It hurts to think of musicians who never got to live their dreams. It hurts to hear about love, and it hurts to be that guy who turns off the radio because of an old flame.

Not that Isobel knows any of this. Just another secret under lock and key. He’s got a lot of those, in the form of a literal locked box among several boxes he keeps shoved in drawers and under things, stuffed in the hidden corners of his life. He pulls it out and sits in in his lap; he fiddles with the little padlock holding it shut safe.

It—it was never an actual dream he had, or anything. It never formed fully in his mind. They never even knew each other until it was already too late, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Helping Isobel with all the preparing, it—it shouldn’t be this hard.

The problem is. The problem is he kind of likes it.  Sitting shoulder to shoulder with his sister on his narrow bunk while she lectures him on fabric integrity and color theory. Comparing flower varieties until he fears he’s lost his sense of smell entirely. Eating so much over-sweetened cake it makes him sick. It’s boring as hell, and frustrating, and overly extravagant, and. He wants it. And he shouldn’t want it. Not while he’s half a murderer with a rap sheet as long as Max’s latest light reading. Not while the only person he’d ever ask could be dead already, and no one even knew to tell him.

With an old, resigned ache beating dully in his throat, he slips the lock and nudges the box open. Inside are the usual suspects—old institutional copies of a human birth certificate, a Social Security card, some emergency cash, the title for his truck, all beside a small stash of other things. As a kid, he’d been a bit of a magpie. Treasure always found its way to his fingertips—pocket-sized ones, in case he had to leave again. Beads and bits of embroidery thread; glittering stones and false keys. He grew out of the habit slowly after aging out of the system.  He kept what kept his memories alive and discarded the rest. He runs his fingertips over the remnants, and they feel impossibly small. A single earring of Isobel’s, missing its twin. A button off an old jacket of Max’s that someone might mistake for gold. A necklace he found at a secondhand shop—two bullet casings and a chunk of quartz threaded on a ribbon—he’d meant to leave on Rosa’s memorial before Max looked at him with salt and sulfur in his face and told him to stop going before people started talking. And there’s—just one other thing.

He stayed a magpie when it came to Alex Manes; he kept an unhealthy number of trinkets in a desperate bid to keep him close. A stub of eyeliner pencil he found in the footwell of the passenger seat. A handful of chipped guitar picks dropped on the desert sand by clever, distracted hands. Hell, he even kept an old flyer from the UFO Emporium, just because he remembered it tacked on the glass of the ticket window the day they kissed in the dark. But nothing Alex left him belongs in this box of mundane essentials and things a desperate someone might think to steal. Nothing except the thing that was never his, and always was.

Michael started helping Sanders out on weekends and days off school when he was fifteen. The old man’s sight was going, and though he refused to admit it to even Michael’s face, he knew it was a good idea to hire someone on to pick up the slack. The yard was the closest thing to a haven Michael had—it felt good to work with his hands, no one would go looking for him there, and even if Sanders could be a real bastard, he never raised his voice or his fists around Michael.

Late on a summer evening, Michael was bent double under the hood of a tourist’s Mercedes, searching for the source of a weird _clunk_ its owner started hearing from the engine after an oil change, when he felt something cool and smooth on the tip of his finger. With a little extraterrestrial assistance, he straightened up with it in his palm—a simple silver band, no adornment, no engraving.

Sanders laughed his cackling smoker’s laugh about people dumb enough to lose a ring inside a car; red-faced, the car’s owner swore up and down that it wasn’t his, never seen it before, he’d never do anything that stupid.

So Michael just…kept it. Carried it around in his pocket. Kept it in his glove box, took it out sometimes to look at it, put it in his lockbox once he settled down a bit.

Even at seventeen, he wasn’t _that_ kind of romantic. Marrying Alex Manes didn’t start to cross his mind until…he can’t even pinpoint when it was, exactly, that looking at the ring started feeling like looking at his future, started feeling like it deserved a matching set. It just feels natural, now, that the day he fell in love with Alex he already had a ring in his pocket.

He thinks back to being touched all nervous and hungry, and he thinks Alex might have loved him just a little, too. Maybe not enough, maybe not enough for a lifetime together, but Michael would still like the chance—that’s all he wants, just the chance—to go down on one knee and find that out some day.

But hey. It’s not about him right now; it’s about giving Iz the best damn day of her life. Helping her forget the secrets and the lies, just for a little. So he replaces the lock on the box, replaces his aching back on its shelf, and starts scrolling through the music on his phone.

He dances as Isobel’s wedding. He dances with his sister and with girls he knew from high school; he dances with Noah’s lawyer friends and other people he’s never even met before. He dances with acetone cutting his blood and his brain a thousand miles away, under vaulted ceilings and, later, under the stars.

* * *

In a clean, cold hospital half a world away, dancing gets a little more complicated for Alex Manes.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Isobel in this one! I love............siblins


	5. just what summer ever meant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve just got the one blanket, but between the pillows they brought to cushion Alex’s leg if he needed it and the warmth their bodies make together, the outside world is nothing more than a vague suggestion.

In a universe this vast, there are so few constants. So few things you can depend on. Even laws and theories long thought immutable can be altered. Disproven. Replaced by something reflecting a newer understanding of the world and all its tiny moving parts.

Alex slides into the back of Michael’s truck with a six-pack tucked under one arm and a blanket folded over the other. Michael stills with his hand buried in the guts of a busted old boom box and just watches him, watches him spread the blanket out and tuck it around himself, watches him lean over the side of the truck to talk to Liz and laugh at something she says. Michael watches Alex settle into his space and leave a place for him beside him.

The world spins tilted on its axis, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The afternoon goes on; the sun flirts with the horizon, and Rosa planned for a bonfire, so that’s what they do. Michael’s handiwork with the boombox has gotten them through three mixtapes and what feels like a crate of beer—who knew the Wild Pony did catering? As the slightly scratchy sound of the old music player kicks over to the next track, Michael smiles. It feels good to fix the little things. He’d been offended at first, at Liz and Rosa’s alien detox suggestion, but this has been…right. Nice.

Kyle comes over to goad Alex into chugging a beer; Maria comes over to cajole them both into dancing. Liz passes by to make sure they’re okay; Isobel burrows her way under the blankets beside Michael for a little while and sits with them in silence. But it’s all pale shadows, no matter how much Michael loves these people, it’s all just mirrors and smoke compared to the solid weight of Alex that rocks the truck when he shifts his balance. The full-up sloshing aliveness of being alone with someone in a crowd.

Michael wants to do something stupid, like, really dumb, like, he came to this public event with an old ring in his pocket and a million clumsy words tied on to his tongue. Being here with Alex makes him quiet, but it’s all still pent up and waiting. They’ve lived two lives full of potential energy; anyone would be a little scared of what’s coming next. So he swallows whole the good kind of fear, the giddy, buzzing terror of being sixteen and watching a _boy_ from across a crowded room. He rests his lips against Alex’s forehead and fills and fills up his lungs. Alex exhales a shaky little sigh.

“Everything all right?” Michael asks, incapable of anything louder than a murmur.

“I don’t want to ruin the moment,” Alex replies. He massages Michael’s hip in hypnotizing, digging motions.

“Hmm.” Michael sighs along with him, then rearranges them so they can look each other in the eyes. They’ve just got the one blanket, but between the pillows they brought to cushion Alex’s leg if he needed it and the warmth their bodies make together, the outside world is nothing more than a vague suggestion. Everything is right here. Michael says, “Whatever it is, we can handle it.” He thumbs an eyelash off Alex’s cheekbone.  “I think we’ve proven that by now.”

Alex leans into Michael’s hand on his face. “It’s nothing that bad. It’s just…” His eyes wander over to the bonfire; the light jumps and dances in the reflection of his eyes. “Being here like this brings back some memories, you know?”

Of course it does. They were here a decade ago, not just like this, not even close, but it’s impossible to ignore the proximity. They leaned against this same truck in this same patch of desert, and they played guitar like they could pretend they weren’t imagining skin beneath their fingers.

“I’m a fan of some of those memories.”

“Doesn’t mean they can’t still hurt.”

“Nah. Nothing’s hurtin’ right now. Wanna know my secret?”

“I’ve got some idea.”

Alex reaches over and folds the collar of Michael’s shirt back into place. That simple, innocent gesture sends goosebumps racing over his skin, and he presses a smile against the curve of Alex’s neck.

“It’s just…” Alex sighs again, and his restless fingers set up a gentle stroke up and down Michael’s back. “I wish I’d danced with you. Senior prom. The night you offered. But I was—scared. You weren’t out, there were never even any rumors, I wasn’t sure—you could have been playing a prank on me, even though I didn’t think you were _cruel,_ but still. And then, well, if this was your Big Gay Moment, I was flattered, but I wasn’t sure you were ready for the consequences. I was scared we’d get, I don’t know, beat up in the parking lot, and you’d get hurt, and from then on you’d just associate me with pain. Crazy, huh?”

“Alex—” Michael’s voice breaks on the syllables, and he squeezes his hand compulsively, and Alex squeezes him back.

“I know it wouldn’t have changed anything. And that looking back on it, wishing things were different just—hurts. But I wanted you to know. That I thought about it. A lot. In case you thought about it too.”

Michael lines their fingers up, and Alex’s twitch a little, just a compulsive little spasm, like he’s fighting back an urge to tangle them together, to hold on tight. Warm and light and orbiting real, Michael smiles.

“Yeah. I thought about it.”

“Good.” Alex ducks his eyes, just a little, then snaps them back to stare at Michael like he’s trying to see inside of him. It’s a tic he does—just a little habit, something someone else might mistake for a weakness, but Michael sees it as—sometimes you have to look away to make sure you’re seeing to the real of a thing instead of just what you want to see.

And sometimes, Michael’s gotta kiss Alex.

Just a little tic. Just the way the world works.

So he does, he leans in and kisses his full, warm mouth, drinks down his huffed little moans and the taste of his toothpaste.

“We could do it now, you know,” Michael says. “I’m sure Rosa’s got something more danceable than classic Panic. Pretty easy to recapture the moment.”

“Mm.” Alex murmurs an acknowledgment. He rubs the washed-soft flannel of Michael’s shirt between his fingers; his eyelids flutter all heavy, and he doesn’t move a muscle.

“Yeah, I don’t want to move either.” Michael drops a kiss on the top of Alex’s head and rests there, breathing him in, body loose and warm with satisfaction. That they can say these things now—look at the past, at the people they were, and fit the puzzle back together—it’s a kind of magic even Michael never believed might be real. He thought he knew the meaning of the word cosmic, but he never _understood_ —how it’s made up of little moments, defined by its smallest parts, the way the stars break down to elements.

He gets it now.

“We’ve got time, now,” Alex says; his voice lilts at the end, making it an almost-question neither of them really wants to answer. There’s no reason to think the universe will suddenly stop working the exact same it always has; no guarantee of safety; all that can be promised is that this time, for real, they’re going to _try._

“Yeah,” Michael says, slipping his hand into his pocket, “We’ve got time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little shorter than the other chapters, but in the end I wanted to keep it close to this one moment. They're in love!!!! I love them!!!!!


	6. shadows fall away like dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you ready for this?” Michael asks, eyes fixed on the dark wood dance floor at the center of the ring of tables. He gulps, and—it’s so close, but at the same time it feels like belonging to a different body, the way he can already almost feel his feet move, hear the music, feel the wood solid beneath him and Alex solid in his arms.

Early morning light sifts through the little window in Alex’s kitchen, and that pale, grayish glow turns the whole world floaty and dreamlike. Maybe that’s why Michael proposes, still soft-throated and slurring from sleep, at six in the morning on a workday while wearing nothing but Air Force sweats and mostly failing to scramble eggs. In dreams, Alex always says yes. Nothing to worry about.

In real life, Alex has two lines from the pillowcase cutting across his cheek, and he’s so busy gaping at Michael that he pours coffee onto his hand instead of in a mug where it belongs.

“Kinda hard to wear a ring if your fingers swell up,” Michael mutters as he holds Alex’s hand under the tap.

“Well a little _warning_ would have been nice—I-I would have been _ready—”_

“I gave you warning! So much warning! I’ve been folding your underwear for months—”

“Sharing chores isn’t the same as—as—I could have already had a ring for you! Are we even going to wear rings before the wedding? How far ahead have you planned? How expensive are Isobel’s rates; god, I don’t even know that much! How—”

“Alex!” Michael says, and Alex cuts himself off, his lips parted, his eyes wide and startled and swirling in a shaft of sunlight. “You sayin’ yes to me?” His voice cracks halfway through, and he clears his throat, ducking his eyes away from that piercing gaze. Real daylight slowly fills the room, and it pops the drifting soap-bubble confidence of Michael’s half-asleep declaration. _Hey, Alex, hey, wanna get married? We should totally get married._ Lucid, his heart flutters nauseously in his chest, and he swallows bitter bracing himself for an _it’s too soon_ or _I’m not ready_ or _let’s think about it_ and—it’s okay, it’s okay, it doesn’t actually mean Alex doesn’t love him or—or want to spend their lives together, it’s just a big ask and Michael wasn’t thinking and should have had a better case prepared. It’s _okay._

Alex makes a strangled noise, seizes Michael’s hair in wet hands, and mashes their mouths together.

It’s the clumsiest kiss they’ve ever shared, even more than the first one when they were kids still growing into their bodies. Still, Michael bows into it, screws his eyes shut, sucks on Alex’s lower lip and drowns in the sensation of connection.

_“Yes,”_ Alex breathes into his mouth, holding Michael’s head still between his palms. “Yes, yes, yes.”

They’re both late to work that morning, after they get too wrapped up in the kitchen to watch the clock, after trying to get dressed without taking their hands off each other, after Alex kisses Michael into a lingering breathless goodbye pressed up against the cab of his truck. That evening, Alex gets home before Michael, who stopped over to see Isobel and Max and tell them the news, and Michael barely gets a step inside before Alex has the door shut and Michael’s back against it, kissing the breath from his lungs all over again. He only pulls back in brief, scattered seconds to pant more questions like _how was your day_ and _when do we get started_ and Michael laughs from the bottom of his stomach and answers every single one with lips and teeth and tongue.

* * *

Michael was nervous before prom, both times; he was nervous on Isobel’s arm at her wedding in front of her new lawyer husband and the whole judgmental menagerie of Roswell elite society that attended just to say they were there. Nervous wouldn’t even cut it to describe how he buzzed and fretted before the first date of his and Alex’s _new_ relationship.

Walking down the aisle to meet Alex in the middle, he isn’t nervous at all. At his own wedding, Max started sobbing openly as soon as the first strains of the wedding march began, but for Michael—today, under a cloudless sky, Alex looks exactly the same as he always has. It never gets any easier to look at him, to hold all that love inside his body and not explode, but if nothing else Michael has been practicing for this day since he was sixteen years old and his heart first fluttered for a boy with a guitar. Alex is a shock to the system, glowing and grinning and reaching his hands out to take Michael’s under the bright sun surrounded by people who love them, and Michael lets himself be shocked, takes that electric current into every single nerve ending, and feels like lighting up the whole damn world.

Later, though, the nerves come back. The feeling creeps up as the stars come out, as the band sets up, as the ring on his finger clicks against Alex’s as he tangles their fingers together and the whole brilliant _forever_ soaks into his brain.

“Are you ready for this?” Michael asks, eyes fixed on the dark wood dance floor at the center of the ring of tables. He gulps, and—it’s so close, but at the same time it feels like belonging to a different body, the way he can already almost feel his feet move, hear the music, feel the wood solid beneath him and Alex solid in his arms.

Isobel has outdone herself. She knew even without asking that Michael wanted to be married outdoors, that he wanted to dance with his new _husband_ under the stars. And not that Michael has noticed anything except Alex, but Isobel arranged everything so perfectly, tasteful and understated, dark wood and golden lights and the perfume of champagne roses, and she somehow knew exactly who to invite, even people Michael never would have thought of or expected to come—hell, even old man Foster, in a suit three decades out of style, showed up to guzzle a couple beers and slap Michael on the back. Arturo Ortecho had tears in his eyes, and he squeezed Alex by the shoulders and said over and over again how he was so proud, how Alex had grown into such a wonderful man. Lost in everything magic and surreal about this entire night, Michael doesn’t hear Alex respond to him until he repeats himself, a look of impossibly fond exasperation on his face.

“Ready? Isn’t this supposed to be the fun part? No ceremony, no pomp and circumstance…as beautiful as your vows were…” he kisses the bridge of Michael’s nose, “…it’s a cool night; everything’s been perfect…” Michael kisses him back on the corner of his mouth, and Alex wraps his hand around the back of Michael’s neck, “…now all we have to do is relax and enjoy a party that’s just for us. What’s there to be ready for?”

“Kinda feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,” Michael replies, “I don’t want to step on your feet or something. Maybe we should’ve taken classes?”

“I believe in you.” And as the first warm-up strains of strings begin, Alex pulls Michael stumbling and flushed onto the dance floor. And once they’re there, at the center of all the light and all the attention and Michael swallows, making his throat bob and Alex lick his lips—Alex slides his hand onto Michael’s shoulder and rubs that tense muscle; he presses Michael’s other hand to his waist and holds it there.

The song begins, and Michael’s feet move with it.

The music sloshes, joy-drunk, in his ears and in his veins; Michael giggles and pivots them, Alex smoothly mirroring the motion; he glides along like his feet don’t even need to touch the floor, and, tightening his arm around Alex’s waist, Michael guides them in a circle around the dance floor, a simple, synchronized give-and-take that’s natural for their two bodies with no experience between them. It’s easy to move with Alex in his arms. Always has been, and now—

Well, if there was ever a day to be cheesy, it’s this one.

Now, it always will be.

“You’re letting me lead?” Michael asks, and he rubs their noses together, reveling in the way Alex grins, so huge and beaming his eyes crinkle up and Michael has to kiss each dimpled cheek.

“Of course—I’m having a moment.” Alex lets himself be dipped then pulled back up into Michael’s arms, where he settles like he’s never left. “You think I didn’t watch Disney every single sleepover I had, dreaming about being swept off my feet?” His voice warbles; his eyes sparkle in the low, golden light, and Michael sniffles, laughs at himself, then sniffles again.

“You tryin’ to tell me I’m some kind of prince?”

“Maybe.” Running his fingers down Michael’s cheek, Alex twirls his finger in a single spiral curl and teases, “You crying on your wedding day?”

“Maybe,” bubbles out of Michael’s chest along with another elated laugh—and then they’re both laughing, fat, shimmering tears beading on Alex’s eyelashes, foreheads resting together as Alex slides his arms around Michael’s neck and they’re kissing, all movement slowed down to nothing but a gentle sway off-time with the music as the song draws to an end, the sound of strings lingering in the air like dust motes floating in the kitchen in the early morning. Around them, people applaud, and someone whistles, and over Alex’s shoulder Michael sees Max beaming and Isobel wiping away a happy tear and locking her arm with Maria’s. Maria flutters a little wave Michael’s way and gives him a thumbs up; then, as the next song picks up lively and quick, she’s the first to join them, tugging Isobel with her onto the dance floor.

More and more people fill up the space around them, but Michael and Alex are an island to themselves, apart from the crowd, apart from even the music itself—without a word, they switch positions with the new song, so Alex can take control and hold Michael up as he sways into him, trying to melt their bodies together. He’s boneless and breathless and barely even holding it together and how, how did he ever get here, how, days like this don’t happen to people like him, people like Alex don’t happen to people like him, but here Alex is, humming in his ear, heartbeat pounding next to Michael’s own, and Michael presses his mouth to Alex’s shoulder to quiet a tiny, hiccupping sob.

_Shhh,_ Alex soothes, his hand stroking the length of Michael’s back; they’re almost standing still; people swirl around them but Michael has to stand still, dizzy and weak and so in love but so _scared_ because he’s demanded _forever_ out of Alex and—

“I love you, Michael Guerin.”

Michael gasps wetly and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to stop the tears before anyone sees. The motion traps his arms awkwardly between his chest and Alex’s, but Alex just holds him tighter, the warmth of his body wrapping Michael up.

“I have loved you. For over a decade. And you have loved me too.” Alex starts on a laugh at the vulnerable crack of his own voice, the giddy, open bareness. These words, they’re—they’re the same ones he said, their hands together, in front of everyone, the words that bound them together, and Michael drops his hands because he can’t do anything but look at Alex in the eyes as his love says, “And I will love you for a decade more, and a decade after that, until there are no more stars in the sky. And I will never, ever leave you, and I will _never_ look away. Do you believe that? Do you understand me?” He grinds his forehead into Michael’s, his hands clutching his face.

“I do. I do,” Michael sobs, trying to nod for emphasis but he just clunks their heads together and busting out into peals of helpless laughter.

“Then _dance_ with me,” Alex says, twirling them back into motion with everyone else around them, hopelessly out of time and Michael couldn’t care less at all as they whirl in each other’s arms.

“You sweep me off my feet, you know that, Captain?” Michael manages, and Alex actually lifts him, just an inch off the ground, just to prove a point. “You’ve already _got_ me, you don’t gotta make me swoon like that—”

“I’ll do more than that,” Alex rasps right in Michael’s ear, his breath teasing the tiny hairs on the skin there and sending a hot prickle across the back of Michael’s neck. “I want more than a ring and vow from you tonight, _Michael._ I want all of you.” He slides their hands together and presses Michael’s, palm-down, over his heart. “I want you to mark me tonight. You’re going to feel me. I’m going to feel you. And I’m not letting you out of bed until we’re both feeling _satisfied.”_

Michael licks his lips and savors the taste of ozone and anticipation. “Can’t wait,” he says—and the next song Michael leads, until Liz and Isobel cut in to take their boys for a spin.

They find their way back to each other every time; their eyes follow each other across the wood floor, across every dancer in between them, until they come back together and lose the rest of the night to the music and the steps and all the magic they make together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end! thanks for reading ^-^
> 
> discord @ haloud  
> tumblr @ cosmicsolipsism


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